


Damn Few

by fictorium



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Hiding, On the Run, Reunion Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13940856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: A call from an old friend pulls Alicia away from Chicago.





	Damn Few

The call comes just a little later than could be considered decent, and while Alicia’s gotten comfortable in her new life, she knows better than to ignore the unknown number at this time of night.

“Alicia Florrick,” she answers, because despite the divorce and everything that’s come since, she can’t quite bring herself to lose the name. It is, as Eli keeps reminding her in his weekly entreaties to run for something, her brand.

“Alicia.” It’s dizzying to hear her name said that way, both benediction and warning, that hint of an accent never quite ironed all the way out.

“Is... can I say your name on this call? Is it safe?”

“You’ve gotten good at this.”

“I’ve had to. What do you want?” Alicia exhales, counting the seconds until Kalinda forms her question. She’s still adept at the little silences, the moments of calculation as Kalinda works out what favor she needs most, and what she’s willing to sacrifice to get it.

“You took the bar in DC, right? Before you went back to Chicago?”

“Yeah, we all did. Just in case.” We. Peter, Will, Alicia. Only one of them still standing. Does Kalinda know? Is that why she’s calling? The funeral had been modest, without Jackie to insist on something grander and Alicia less comfortable than usual in the role of ex-wife. It had fallen on Grace, mostly, another silent resentment for her to carry.

“Good. Good,” Kalinda says, like the word is unfamiliar on her tongue. “Alicia, I need a lawyer.”

***

She isn’t kidding.

Alicia picks up the file from the attorney’s office in some suburb that the rental car’s GPS can barely find. At first the new name throws her, she’s so used to Kalinda Sharma (not Leela, never Leela, she happened to somebody else entirely). But it doesn’t take long to see the overreach by the prosecution, the holes in the argument that Kalinda could have spotted herself without a JD.

It’s the first accusation Alicia levels after stepping inside the cool, impersonal apartment. Kalinda flinches, which she never used to do. In the brighter lights of the dining room, Alicia can see the lines under Kalinda’s eyes, the slight tremor in her hands when she accepts the papers Alicia had drawn up and printed at a Kinko’s on the way over.

“Kalinda?”

“Mmm?” She doesn’t look up from the paperwork, but she doesn’t seem to be reading it either.

“Do you need something more than a lawyer?”

She considers for a long time, almost too long. Laying her hands flat on the table to hide their trembling. For a moment it looks like she’ll bolt, leave another life behind without even the note this time.

“I thought I saw Bishop,” Kalinda confesses. “I keep seeing him.”

“But he’s-”

“I know.” She gets up, but only goes as far as the kitchen. She starts fussing with mugs and tea, before changing her mind and opening the fridge. Alicia sees the bottle of wine, the two glasses, and a little part of her can breathe all the way in again. They pour and clink glasses without a word, the conversation on pause until the glasses are almost empty.

“I was sorry. To hear about Peter.”

It’s the one subject Kalinda shouldn’t bring up, no doubt a test of sorts. Alicia doesn’t feel the old anger anymore, it doesn’t wedge like a blade between her ribs and twist.

“Even though he cost us our friendship? The old one, I mean. The good one.”

“Yeah.” Kalinda refills their glasses. “I’ll be fine if I get a decent night’s sleep. Getting this case off my back will go a long way.” She reaches for Alicia, grasps her wrist. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“I learned a long time ago I don’t have to do anything.”

Kalinda smiles, and it’s almost like it was. Which is enough, Alicia reasons, to stand up then and shrug off her casual sweater, and start to unbutton the crisp white shirt beneath it. She has a pantsuit for court tomorrow, to file the papers that will scare off the prosecutors coming for Kalinda, but with today being a travel day, she’s casual right down to her underwear.

By the time Alicia reaches for the fly on her tight black jeans, Kalinda is standing in front of her, hands steady as she does the unzipping. They don’t kiss until they reach the bedroom, one of only three doors off the narrow hallway. It doesn’t taste of much but wine and how things used to be, but Alicia comes alive at the frisson of Kalinda’s tongue against her own.

They’re here, and they’re alive, and so many others are not. Kalinda’s dress unzips so easily, it falls away like there’s someone waiting in the wings just to remove it. The mattress is hard but the sheets are luxurious; Kalinda has always known what to spoil herself with.

After, with her head spinning and her hips a little sore from how she’d thrust back against Kalinda’s fingers, Alicia traces her own kiss-swollen lips in the half-light.

“What do you think Diane would say, if she could see us now?”

The only shared frame of reference they have left, Alicia realizes. No Will, no Peter, and who the hell knows what Cary is up to these days.

“She slapped me, you know,” Alicia says, like that explains anything. “So I imagine she’d just tell me to go to hell. Again.”

“Diane told me once, not to get involved with you.”

“She’s pretty smart. Maybe you should have listened.” Alicia sits up against the headboard, feeling Kalinda’s dark eyes watch every move.

“Are you going to run for Senate?”

“Are you going to come back to Chicago?”

They both know the answers to those questions, but it’s polite to ask them anyway.

“When do you fly back?” Kalinda asks instead.

“When I’m sure you’re okay,” Alicia answers. Both kids in college, they don’t need her. Work will have to understand, they usually do. Saint Alicia and her hopeless causes, as Owen would say. “And not just legally.”

“Okay.” Kalinda accepts, with her fingers trailing along the outside of Alicia’s bare thigh. “I’m feeling better already.”

“Me too,” Alicia agrees. For the first time in too long, she might actually mean it.


End file.
